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CEO Jay Hoffmann said he wants people to book vacations easier and faster - especially Chicagoans trying to survive the polar vortex this winter. And that is exactly what a $6.5 million Series A round, announced today, will allow users of reward travel site Rocketmiles to do this year.
Already, Rocketmiles users are earning 80,000 miles on airlines through the company’s nine airline partners. The incredible travel reward system created by Rocketmiles gives users about 10 to 20 times the typical incentive when booking flights and hotel stays, Hoffmann said.
“All the metrics are ahead of schedule,” Hoffmann said.
That’s why investors have jumped on board to support the less than one-year-old company. Leading this round is August Capital with participation from existing investors Peterson Ventures, Link Ventures and Atlas Venture. Hoffmann said he was ready to close this round in December, but new investors like Chicago Ventures and Sam Yagan also jumped in to participate.
With this funding boost, the 20-person team behind Rocketmiles (nine of which are based in Chicago) will be working on a variety of projects in the next few months including mobile optimization, adding three airline partners and “turning on this program that’s working in the US, overseas.”
Hoffmann, who has executive level experience at United Mileage Plus and Groupon, said the Rocketmiles has some big footsteps to follow in terms of impressive travel and e-commerce companies that sprouted from Chicago. Because of the infrastructure created by companies like Hyatt, Orbitz and United, Hoffmann said Chicago is the best place for him to build Rocketmiles (not to mention it is his hometown).
“There is a heritage of great travel companies here,” Hoffmann said. “We’d love to be the next great Chicago travel startup.”
Groupon, too, inadvertently contributed to a lot of the early success Rocketmiles has seen. Just by bringing in loads of outstanding tech talent to the city, Groupon set the stage for many Groupon alumni to stay in Chicago and start their own companies. Hoffmann himself is proof of this: “we are one of the great stories that came from Groupon.”
“Rocketmiles is at the top of the class of innovative startups here in Chicago,” Stuart Larkins of Chicago Ventures said in a press release. “In the last year, we’ve watched them explode out of the gate like Apolo Ohno. Jay Hoffmann and the team are building a great company that also happens to follow in the lineage of established Chicago travel companies like Orbitz and United, and great Chicago e-commerce companies like Groupon.”
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